


After All These Years

by thelittlethings



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Minor Character Death, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 04:01:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlethings/pseuds/thelittlethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Stiles ends up in the police station yet again, the Sheriff spends the night reflecting on what exactly his life has become. A short character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After All These Years

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this came from, but it did.

After all these years, you still wear your wedding ring. You still have that picture on your desk at work that the deputies know not to talk about. You still avoid the house sometimes because you know that when you get home, she's not going to be there, but that he is. And he's the worst and best part of all this, because he is her. He is his mother's child, her energy, her intelligence, her charm. He is her big brown eyes and her tendency to protect everyone she loves, her run on sentences and her need to go with every whim. 

But he's not her. He's darker, too, changed by her. He's not the bubbly little boy you remember him to be. He's a ball of mystery, secrets that you have a feeling you're better off not knowing. He is the smell of bleach in sterile hallways, her last words before she closed her eyes for the last time, though you didn't know it yet. He's the child you were supposed to protect, but who ended up protecting you. He's the reason you wake up in the morning and the memory that keeps you up at night. 

Because when you're too busy to make it to the cemetery, he does. There are always fresh roses on her grave, accenting _Loving Wife and Mother_. You know she's in a better place, and it's where she's supposed to be, but damn it, if you don't want her to be _here_. 

She left. She left you alone with a child you are in no state to raise without her but have to anyway, and maybe you screwed up. Maybe more than once. Maybe you could have done better. Maybe, if she were here, he wouldn't be sneaking around and lying and pushing classmates into stolen police transport vehicles. He'd be at home, doing his homework, eating a meal made by a woman who could do better than you ever could. 

But you can't change the past, and it's unfair to blame either of the two people you love with your entire being. How can you? He is her, and she is him, and you fell in love with one and made the other out of love. In reality, they're not all that different. 

It just doesn't make tomorrow any easier. 


End file.
